The “Bizarre” Next Film and Mandy Director’s Love for Buckaroo Banzai

Although the Panos Cosmatos-directed, Nicholas Cage–starred Mandy was widely praised and instantly became a cult favorite back in 2018, it has been some time since he has been heard from.

We have good news for those of you who belong to his rapidly growing fan base and have been impatiently awaiting his next release: not only is his episode of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix a stone-cold banger, but we can also confirm he’s currently working on his next TWO feature films, the first of which sounds like another wild trip.

Despite the fact that the specifics of the collaboration are being kept under wraps, Nekrokosm will team up Cosmatos with the avant-garde A24 for a phantasmagorical fantasy nightmare. Through our conversation with the director, we were able to learn more about what to anticipate from the film.

It’s not hard science fiction, he says to Den of Geek. It’s quite fantastical and odd. I consider Mandya to be somewhat of a crowd-pleaser, but I’m hoping this one will be even more so because the movie I want to produce following Nekrokosmis much darker, tonal, and more existential. But more than ever before, Nekrokosmis brought a lot of my passions and concerns together.

The "Bizarre" Next Film and Mandy Director's Love for Buckaroo Banzai

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Cosmatos describes his Cabinet of Curiosities episode, “The Viewing,” as more of an experimental film that is “kind of a mash-up of a Scooby-Doo cartoon and an EC comic,” according to Cosmatos.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Peter Weller plays a wealthy recluse who dabbles in heavy drugs and collects one-of-a-kind items in the movie. Firstborn and the infamous flop The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension from the same year, both of which starred Weller, rank among the director’s favorite films. Casting him was a big coup for the director, who has been a huge fan of Weller’s since he was a small boy.

Cosmatos claims that he based the novel on his personal experiences when it comes to addiction, both to drugs and to the collection.

Thematically, it’s something that intrigues me, he says. “I believe that extreme collecting and addiction are similar. I mean, I was raised among powerful collectors.

The "Bizarre" Next Film and Mandy Director's Love for Buckaroo Banzai

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My father had a sizable collection. I only modestly collect, but I know folks who are obsessive collectors who are like librarians with knowledge of comic books and movies.

This kind of thinking intrigues me. It resembles drug addiction in certain ways. There’s a part of me that wishes I had a laptop next to me and lived a completely Spartan lifestyle. The need to accumulate, though, is real.

What particular piece from Cosmatos’ own personal collection would he want to exhibit to a group of people if he could do so? You might not be surprised by the response given how much he enjoys Weller’s back catalog. “That would be my 35 mm Buckaroo Banzai trailer reel. Just for them, I would project it.